Kuroda Sensei

October 24, 2008 1:06 AM

Kuroda Tetsuzan Sensei is an incredible Japanese martial artist. As a skilled swordsman, he practices very old and unusual forms of iaido, kenjutsu as well an interesting form of ju jutsu. He is both incredibly still and incredibly fast and he knows a few tricks too.

In a lovely extended interview with the Aiki News, he talks about his family's martial system and the training methods he uses.

posted by salishsea (60 comments total)

That iaido video is stunning. Exploring others now. Thanks so much for this.
posted by penduluum at 1:38 AM on October 24, 2008

Yep. Kuroda is a fascinating guy. There's a lot of this material coming out into the open now. It's a fundamentally different way of training the body.
posted by wuwei at 1:38 AM on October 24, 2008

In a similar (but more post-modern) vein, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbvipmVYGzA
posted by wuwei at 1:40 AM on October 24, 2008

Nice. There is something quite beautiful in watching a master martial artist (I like Gozo Shioda as well). It's like ballet. Beautiful deadly ballet.
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:46 AM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Jesus, look at this guy. He's phenomenal. I could watch this for hours.
posted by penduluum at 1:50 AM on October 24, 2008

But has he mastered the penis kung-fu?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:22 AM on October 24, 2008

looks staged. check the pinky wrestling journalist 4:30 secs in. Maybe he has some serious skills but why make them look cheap with crap like this.
posted by Addiction at 2:25 AM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Kuroda is interesting, but not my scene.

I've been involved in Iaido for a while, and I've met lots of wonderful people. One of the most impressive was Imai Masayuki sensei, 10th soke of Hyoho Niten Ichi Ryu, the style of Miyamoto Musashi. You can see a rare video of him with Iwami Toshio sensei, his successor, here. Imai sensei is likely over 80 in that video. You can see Iwami sensei practicing and teaching in France in this video, although it's in french.

A lot of information on the style here, a page maintained by a senior student of the style, with the soke's permission of course.
posted by splice at 3:08 AM on October 24, 2008

Watching them fight, the level of practice has eroded so many of the clunky, naive human brawling instincts that the conflict has evolved into something else. It's like dreams I've had, where a pair of algorithms with the highest fitness were pulled out of a much better version of CoreWars, like a Karl Sims-inspired fight in Chiba City, each dropped into chassis freshly-tooled by Survival Research Labs. At some signal, they flick on, evaluating ... slow approach, no discernable difference means that no advantage is gained, withdrawal. After several iterations of this, rounding errors accumulate and one senses a positional advantage — previous stately motion replaced by sudden piston lunging, bulldozer blades blocking in a motion almost predetermined but for last-split-second adjustments made by a FPGA wired in to tune defenses at a reflexive level. Withdrawal again, assessments are made of opponent condition and models developed of opponent operations. Attack and defense are nearly perfect, until they aren't, and the deciding strike comes with a speed seemingly driven by explosives rather than hydraulics. Hard feelings shown only in a single spark, then, combat mode overriden, back to opposite corners to wait for another signal.

Not that I worship martial arts, but something like this cries out for preservation if only as a demonstration of precisely how far humans can go in becoming something other than the gangly, clumsier chimps.
posted by adipocere at 3:37 AM on October 24, 2008 [8 favorites]

Maybe he has some serious skills but why make them look cheap with crap like this.

Perhaps it is necessary to lighten things up, considering his intent is so deadly serious .

It may also be a way to demonstrate the inner workings of what he does in a way the average person can relate to slightly.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 5:44 AM on October 24, 2008

Watching these kinds of videos always makes me wonder what the, I guess it might be called the "MMA of swordfighting," would look like, if instead of carefully scripted encounters where both people were highly trained in that one narrow discipline, you locked two people in a cage with sticks and saw who could actually remain standing.

My guess is that, like in the mixed-martial-arts events, hybrid and functional forms will consistently beat the scripted and pretty forms. And if you did the Gladiator-style of mixed weapons, where the sword goes against the spear and both are fed to the lions, I suspect that the scripted and pretty forms would disappear even quicker.

That's not to say that it has no value, any more than anything else that is practiced and honed to that level of skill is, just that I doubt it has much utility outside of exhibitions and self-development. Which, since we live in a world where sword combat is vanishingly rare (discounting mass killings by machete, of course), is all for the better.

The videos are pretty, but they make me think more of meditation than combat.
posted by Forktine at 6:06 AM on October 24, 2008 [3 favorites]

You mean like The Dog Brothers?
posted by Comrade_robot at 6:16 AM on October 24, 2008

Perhaps it is necessary to lighten things up, considering his intent is so deadly serious .

Sometimes that's true. Sometimes what looks silly to us actually embodies important concepts of the art. Striking at a wooden post endlessly may look pointless but that's what Jigen ryu does and it's very important to them.

Still, that's not to say there aren't parlor tricks being put forward by some people as genuine skill demonstrations. I'm thinking here of cutting a watermelon on someone's belly, and similar demonstrations. Sometimes seeing those is a sign that not everything is on the level...

AFAIK Kuroda sensei is far from that though.
posted by splice at 6:30 AM on October 24, 2008

My guess is that, like in the mixed-martial-arts events, hybrid and functional forms will consistently beat the scripted and pretty forms.

That demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of kata which is very common among non-practicioners.

Sure, kata are scripted. That doesn't mean they are meant to be performed in combat as taught. In most arts I've been exposed to, kata and waza are a way to ingrain patterns of movement, avoidance and attack. If you put a high level exponent of an art in a death match, you're not going to see him doing kata. But if you filmed it and went over it later, you would see how the movements and attacks are rooted in the style he learned. Just like when you see a karateka spar, you may not see him do kata but he'll kick and punch in the way he was taught and in the same way he does in kata.

Of course this is all theory since we don't fight with swords anymore, and our purpose is not to become swordfighters. But the kata didn't spring into being after people stopped fighting. They have their own lineage and can be traced back to warring times. They were used to transmit teachings, and they were useful for that even in times where swordfights were not uncommon.
posted by splice at 6:38 AM on October 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

I have been in martial arts for a few years. In this time I have learned a valuable lesson I am going to pass on to you.... Never, ever, ever mess with an old man who is wearing a strange colored black belt. 99% of the time they will mop the floor with you. I love seeing grand masters preform the art the way it is suppose to look. I want to be able to do that! Gives me something to shoot for.
posted by Mastercheddaar at 7:13 AM on October 24, 2008

In this time I have learned a valuable lesson I am going to pass on to you.... Never, ever, ever mess with an old man who is wearing a strange colored black belt.

Also phrased as: do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!
posted by spaceman_spiff at 7:49 AM on October 24, 2008

That demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of kata which is very common among non-practicioners.

Sure, kata are scripted. That doesn't mean they are meant to be performed in combat as taught. In most arts I've been exposed to, kata and waza are a way to ingrain patterns of movement, avoidance and attack. If you put a high level exponent of an art in a death match, you're not going to see him doing kata. But if you filmed it and went over it later, you would see how the movements and attacks are rooted in the style he learned. Just like when you see a karateka spar, you may not see him do kata but he'll kick and punch in the way he was taught and in the same way he does in kata.

I partly agree with you here. But since I partly don't, and to take the role of devil's advocate, isn't this what people always said about karate/akido/etc -- that the scriptedness and structure are built on a base of effectiveness, and in a real brawl the sensei would mop the floor with everyone else? But at least within the very tightly regulated boundaries of modern MMA competition, that has turned out to be pretty much absolutely not true -- there is, it seems, a very sharp divide between what you might term "effective" and "self-developmental" martial arts.

My guess is that in reality (assuming no guns, and sharp edges), there are pretty much three kinds of sword fighting: one-on-one, in-a-group, and sword-against-other-weapons, and that those meta-types trumped all differences in the nuances of how one uses a Japanese-style sword versus a Viking-style sword or what have you.

I also have to wonder how common one-on-one swordfighting ever really was, given it's lethality. It's almost the mutually-assured-destruction of dueling, as even a glancing blow from a dying opponent could easily make you bleed to death. I've seen the aftermath of machete blows, and it is nasty, brutal stuff. Very visceral, in a literal sense.
posted by Forktine at 8:02 AM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

There is also nun-chuk baseball.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:26 AM on October 24, 2008

But at least within the very tightly regulated boundaries of modern MMA competition, that has turned out to be pretty much absolutely not true -- there is, it seems, a very sharp divide between what you might term "effective" and "self-developmental" martial arts.

That depends on what criteria you use. MMA still has rules. All I've seen proven by those tournaments is that in that structure, under those rules, karate and aikido don't do well. That doesn't invalidate their use in a self-defense context.

Nor is the goal of martial arts to make you into a peerless figther that cannot be defeated by anyone, anywhere, using any style or weapon. At least, that's not what I see in my practice. Martial art styles have much more to teach than just how to punch or kick or cut. Of course you want to be skilled and able to use those techniques but not necessarily to dominate the world and defeat all opponents.

I also have to wonder how common one-on-one swordfighting ever really was, given it's lethality. It's almost the mutually-assured-destruction of dueling, as even a glancing blow from a dying opponent could easily make you bleed to death.

Yep, even one-on-one the death of both fighters is not out of the question. But were duels uncommon? I don't really think so. Musashi is reported to have survived over 60 duels, however unlikely that may seem. A number of those are recorded in stories and historical accounts from the period, so it's not just his word. Maybe duels and one-on-one fights weren't an everyday thing, but they're certainly far from being unheard of.

Still, there was more one-on-one fighting with swords than other types. In big skirmishes arrows and rocks reaped more souls than swords, which were most often just sidearms. Swords weren't weapons of war as such. A status symbol, a weapon for personal protection, a useful sidearm, sure. But it wouldn't be your first choice when fighting a war.
posted by splice at 8:49 AM on October 24, 2008

I love the mastery of the body and focus that goes with martial arts.

I hate the yabbering about "what would really happen" and my peni- er, style is better than yours.
posted by yeloson at 9:06 AM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

I need a technical commentator (or a spray of fake arterial blood) to tell me when these moves are not just graceful but deadly.
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:23 AM on October 24, 2008

Argh. I signed up for Iaidō during my stint in Japan, and turned up to find out I'd been basically defrauded, and was going to be taught Kenbu. I was so gutted.

This is awesome. Awesome awesome.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:34 AM on October 24, 2008

Nice post. It's always interesting to read up on and view familialsyncratic
(I think I just coined a neologism.) martial arts. I find this stuff fascinating, sometimes previously obscure styles seem to come out of nowhere and take the martial arts world by storm. Many people would argue that Brazillian jiu jitsu (Gracie family style) owes a lot to Kosen judo. Yip Man's style of Wing Chun formed the basis for Bruce Lee's later styles etc.

Without directly referencing any of the above comments, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with some of the above assumptions.

Humans do not and cannot fight like the above links. It's impossible, and it doesn't happen; ever. The above links are beautiful and graceful, much like ballet or gymnastics. The techniques above require great skill and physical conditioning, but they have nothing to do with actual fighting.

I've never seen an example of two people fighting, regardless of training who do not flail, flinch, throw missed punches, retreat, stumble or make mistakes. Their are too many variables for this kind of scripted if/than style of training to work. Watch any non scripted kung fu/karate/jujutsu match and it will resemble kickboxing, boxing, wrestling, judo or MMA. Arts/sports that emphasize full speed and contact in their training. More over, watch almost any kungfu/karate/jujutsu match and it will look like a sloppy version of the above mentioned sports. This is because most martial arts train in a theoretical vacuum that has nothing to do with actual fighting.

Aldo Nadi, considered by many to be the greatest modern swordsman participated in a few duels. Eye witnesses of his duels noticed that his normally perfect technique largely fell apart when actually using a live sword.

Or look at this guy. Sorry for the lame techno soundtrack. This is a pretty famous example of a supposed master who routinely participated in scripted/consentual demonstrations. He started to believe his own shtick and put out a challenge. Watch what happens. On videos of better quality, you can see the disbelief on his face when he is actually hit.

I would like somebody to prove me wrong on this. Find one legitimate example of unscripted/nonconsentual fighting that in any way resembles the grace and fluidity of kata, aikido practice, or movie fight scenes.

The closest I've seen is Cung Le who is an ex san shou fighter who now competes in MMA. Even then, I don't think anyone would mistake his fights for something other than skilled kick boxing.
posted by Telf at 9:52 AM on October 24, 2008 [3 favorites]

I don't know about the penis kungfu, but I do know my life greatly lacks in the "receiving young Asian women in a box full of gold" department.
posted by Samizdata at 10:08 AM on October 24, 2008

This is because most martial arts train in a theoretical vacuum that has nothing to do with actual fighting.

This is obviously proven by the fact that these martial arts have been transmitted in some cases since the 1400s, while we all know there was absolutely no actual fighting from that time until today. Also, the written records of fights and duels engaged in by practicioners and founders of these martial arts are all obviously fabricated.

Right?

Perhaps modern practice is disassociated with fighting. That doesn't mean that the art was created in a vacuum and never used in a fight.

Eye witnesses of his duels noticed that his normally perfect technique largely fell apart when actually using a live sword.

Did he then forget every way he knew to cut and fumbled with his sword, not knowing what to do with it? His perfect technique may not have been perfect in a fight, but I would wager everything he practiced did not get thrown out of the window just like that.

Find one legitimate example of unscripted/nonconsentual fighting that in any way resembles the grace and fluidity of kata, aikido practice, or movie fight scenes.

Whoever said that fights should be like that? The fact that a kata is graceful and fluid in no way prevents the base techniques and attitudes from the kata to be used in a fight. A fight is a fight, and whether I have perfect poise and grace or I stumble into my stance only to start forward again, change direction or trip, I am still using my training.

Again, kata are not meant to be reproduced, and are not a model of fighting. But to say that they do not train you to fight or that fighting is not as graceful as kata is to miss the point. As far as finding a concrete example, I'm sorry, but I have no video of a nonconsensual swordfight fought with real intent. Even if I did, it would be near impossible to prove to anyone not intimately familiar with the martial art on display that the moves used are really rooted in the kata practice.

I did Judo for a while. Judo has kata. Did you know that the kata are completely different from Judo matches? One is graceful, the other is hectic. And yet, all the moves in the kata are used in a match.

BTW:

familialsyncratic martial arts

In Japanese the term is koryu, and they are indeed familial or filial.
posted by splice at 10:12 AM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Not that I worship martial arts, but something like this cries out for preservation if only as a demonstration of precisely how far humans can go in becoming something other than the gangly, clumsier chimps.

I'd still put my money on the chimp in a bar brawl.
posted by Not Supplied at 10:15 AM on October 24, 2008

I also have to wonder how common one-on-one swordfighting ever really was, given it's lethality.

I'm going to go with "common". I can't speak to the Eastern traditions, but from what we know of the Western martial arts, a field that is seeing great progress in scholarship, men needed to know how to fight other men with swords. And they were well aware of the perils of even slight injury.

I don't wish to hijack the thread with WMA information, but let me point you to some examples.

This is an example of how one would fight with the langes messer, or long knife. It's what happens to a knife when you tell peasants that they can't carry swords.

And this is an example of sword and buckler combat.

The basic idea of sword fighting in medieval times: [set aside | gain control over] the other guys attack, then attack him. That's a huge simplification, and does a disservice to the complexity of the art, but if you look for it in the examples, you'll see it time and again.
posted by zueod at 10:18 AM on October 24, 2008

I've always imagined sword fighting outside of drills/kata to get a bit messy, definitely less graceful but with technique still apparent. Kind of like the free fighting that the HEMA groups do to test their technique interpretations. But testing the reality of swordplay, I think, isn't the main priority of modern Japanese swordsmanship. Killing with swords doesn't happen often nowadays.
posted by Mister Cheese at 10:22 AM on October 24, 2008

Oh man, zueod, we can be Western martial arts buddies on Metafilter!

Or nemesises. Whichever you prefer.
posted by Mister Cheese at 10:26 AM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. We'll much prefer to be buddies when the zombie apocalypse comes.
posted by zueod at 10:33 AM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Find one legitimate example of unscripted/nonconsentual fighting that in any way resembles the grace and fluidity of kata, aikido practice, or movie fight scenes.

Pretty nice flying armbar from Judo competition

And of course,

Genki Sudo


I did Judo for a while. Judo has kata. Did you know that the kata are completely different from Judo matches? One is graceful, the other is hectic. And yet, all the moves in the kata are used in a match.

Ehm ... well ... kind of. The kata version of the throw is not usually the one that most people use. And I'm not sure I've ever seen anybody use the first throw from the nage-no-kata on a resisting opponent before.
posted by Comrade_robot at 10:47 AM on October 24, 2008

I did Judo for a while. Judo has kata.

Splice, yeah Judo has kata and boxing has shadow boxing, awesome. Judo also has randori, which is actually practiced in every judo class I've ever attended. Kata? I've read about, but never seen it used ever.

This is obviously proven by the fact that these martial arts have been transmitted in some cases since the 1400s, while we all know there was absolutely no actual fighting from that time until today. Also, the written records of fights and duels engaged in by practicioners and founders of these martial arts are all obviously fabricated.

I assume you were being sarcastic, and will treat that statement as if it were sarcastic. Otherwise, thank you for augmenting my initial point.

The similarities between the above conditions and religious miracles are two obvious to enumerate. Essentially, self reported self aggrandizing accounts of one's exploits do very little to persuade me. Secondly, have you ever played telephone? It's amazing how one message can get severely distorted after about 30 seconds and 10 reiterations. You don't think that anything could have been lost in the last 600 years of transmitting obscure and elaborate movements from one pupil to the next? Especially when this movements are veiled in the philosophy that actually using these deadly techniques defeats the whole philosophy of learning them?


Perhaps modern practice is disassociated with fighting. That doesn't mean that the art was created in a vacuum and never used in a fight.

I agree. 600 years ago Asian martial arts probably looked a lot more like modern MMA when actually executed. What we get today is the diluted, stylized, spiritualized stepchild.

Also, I wasn't just referring to sword fighting, all my comments applied equally to hand to hand combat.

Here's my main point:

Traditional martial arts look very cool. They require a lot of skill and training, much like ballet or acrobatics. If I wanted to learn how to fight, I would not learn ballet. Though practicing ballet would improve my balance and flexibility, it would not be the most efficient way to fight, furthermore, practicing ballet against a boxer would probably get me knocked out.

If I wanted to learn how to fight, I would practice the motions and mechanics of actually fighting.

You can certainly make the often heard claim that martial arts aren't about learning how to fight, they're about disicipline, spirituality, etc. That's fine. But then don't conflate the two later when you feel insulted by somebody who claims that the particular brand of martial art you learned is less effective than somebody else's. Instead, take pride that you are more disciplined or spiritual.
posted by Telf at 10:49 AM on October 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

I'm going to go with "common". I can't speak to the Eastern traditions, but from what we know of the Western martial arts, a field that is seeing great progress in scholarship, men needed to know how to fight other men with swords. And they were well aware of the perils of even slight injury.

Well, I'll defer to experts, if not the reenactors. But my money is on the vast majority of swordfights being uneven -- five against one, or someone with a sword against someone who is unarmed. Similarly, shooting deaths these days are rarely two people, both with guns, both ready to shoot, like in a duel. Instead, mostly it's someone shooting into a crowd, or shooting the guy who they think is getting it on with their girlfriend, or other unevenly matched set ups -- a drunk and aggressive gunman being shot by police, say... who are also completely reliant on bringing reinforcements and heavier weaponry.

I'm pretty sure (though have no citations at hand for proof) that most killings in the old west were like that, too -- ambushes, shots in the back, and/or a group of armed men against one person. The high noon on main street thing looks great in movies, and probably happened from time to time, but it's just not the normal way to kill someone.

Movies aside, you'd be foolish to do anything else. The risk is just too high, and even an untrained person can kill or wound an expert when they start flailing with a sword, or praying and spraying with a gun. So you do your posturing one-on-one, and then you come back that evening with six friends, drag the poor guy out of bed, and string him up. It's been an effective strategy since the beginning of recorded history (hell, it's the same way the earliest humans would have hunted large animals); I don't see what would make the sword age any different.

Again, I've seen the results of machete attacks, and only a complete idiot, or someone who was blind drunk, would willingly face off against an equally-armed and equally-ready opponent with a sharp blade. You simply don't do that (absent strict social norms like those that produced dueling culture in some places). Instead, you hit them from behind, or bring your friends, or upgrade your weaponry. I'm not being proscriptive ("this is what is best"); I'm being descriptive ("this is how people actually enact violence").

My limited reading on violence in the premodern age supports this, though I'm no scholar of that period. A friend once loaned me a book by Natalie Zemon Davis, and the piece that I remember is her discussion of how young men with swords sexualized them, and used them as part of group sexual assaults on women. Sure, they might have been doing a bit of dueling, too, but the main use of the swords, in my memory of her description, was as part of very uneven attacks by groups of armed men on single unarmed people. Sad as it is, I'm pretty sure that that is a far more accurate description of the uses of weaponry than is the carefully even stagings of the reenactors.

But again, I don't want to lose the main point of this FPP, which was to acknowledge the skill and beauty in the refinement of a particular strand of technique. We can quibble about historical accuracy all we want, but that shouldn't detract from our appreciation of that kind of display of skill.
posted by Forktine at 10:55 AM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Comrade_robot,

Ah! Genki Sudo! I was trying to rack my brain for his name. That dude is nuts.

Yeah flying armbars are awesome. Definitely one of the cooler moves used in Judo and MMA. That's a particularly fluid one too. Still, the execution of the move doesn't really resemble an Aikido-style effortless magical touch. And the rest of the match doesn't look nearly as graceful. Still, that one move was beautifully executed.
posted by Telf at 10:56 AM on October 24, 2008

You know why horses, bows, pole-arms, cannons, muskets and atomic bombs were invented, right? Because no one wants a three foot razor blade swinging around in their face. Sword fights are over very, very fast, and only one (and sometimes not even one) person walks away from them.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:02 AM on October 24, 2008

Thanks for this.
posted by tkolar at 11:04 AM on October 24, 2008

I went to university with that Chris Crudelli, you know.
posted by Abiezer at 11:38 AM on October 24, 2008

I thought these videos were lame until I realized he was moving so fast that I couldn't see it.
posted by Alex404 at 12:34 PM on October 24, 2008

...Watching these kinds of videos always makes me wonder what the, I guess it might be called the "MMA of swordfighting," would look like, if instead of carefully scripted encounters where both people were highly trained in that one narrow discipline, you locked two people in a cage with sticks and saw who could actually remain standing.

Well, you could read up on the history of duelling, for example; in the West, people did go to fencing schools precisely to enhance their chance of surviving real fights they were quite likely to have. The theory was useful.


I also have to wonder how common one-on-one swordfighting ever really was, given it's lethality.

Quite common, really. Duelling had to be legally banned to try and curb young men looking to poke each other with long bits of metal.

As far as Kata go: I once spent some time with a Dutch Judo kata specialist, who explained that, in his view, kata was for a judoka what doing scales and practise pieces are for a concert violinist: they're the fundamentals that help you understand what you're doing. Someone who wanted to fight should do kata for the same reason a concert violinist does their exercises.

And I'm not sure I've ever seen anybody use the first throw from the nage-no-kata on a resisting opponent before.

Probably because no-one's silly enough to rush in like that in a real fight. I've certainly used Kata Guruma on someone who got careless, which isn't generally considered a competition throw these days.

Kata? I've read about, but never seen it used ever.

Really? Most clubs I've been to have at least some kata practise.
posted by rodgerd at 1:51 PM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Probably because no-one's silly enough to rush in like that in a real fight. I've certainly used Kata Guruma on someone who got careless, which isn't generally considered a competition throw these days.

Really? I haven't seen a lot of standing kata guruma, but I've seen a fair bit of the drop-knee version in randori/competition.
posted by Comrade_robot at 2:24 PM on October 24, 2008

Of the many things I've wanted to learn in my live, Iaido has always been high on the list. As it was explained to me when I was younger; it's like a quick-draw, but with a sword. And in one movement, you draw, make your cut, flick the blood from your blade, and replace at your belt.

To a seventeen year-old, that is one of the most bad ass descriptions you can possibly imagine. Unfortunately, at the time, there was no one in my area who taught it, so I tried to learn from books and videos, which naturally failed miserable. Fortunately, I stuck with a boken, so my failures resulted in bruises and dented walls, not lost limbs and massive blood loss.

Watching these videos, I'm doubly sad at how much I sucked at it.
posted by quin at 2:52 PM on October 24, 2008

Where's tkchrist when we need him?
posted by pharm at 2:54 PM on October 24, 2008

tkchrist commented on this thread so fast you did not see him.

Only after years of kata practice and meditation am I able to see his comments. They are hilarious and profoundly wise at the same time.
posted by dirty lies at 3:33 PM on October 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

A friend of mine is a martial artist and a scholar of dance, and working on his PhD right now.

His theory, boiled down, is that martial arts are codifed as traditions precisely as the skills they employ are becoming obsolete. Then the aesthetic aspect begins to override the utilitarian one. Finally, in a homophobic and macho culture, martial arts provide a socially sanctioned way for men to practise aesthetic movement without accused of being a poof.

So what I take from that is that without an everyday context of violence, judging martial art by effectiveness is like judging painting by how perfectly it reproduces a 2d view. It's a criterion to be sure, but it needn't be the main one and in fact that's not even really what painting is about.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:59 PM on October 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

Ha! (at above filthy lies) Also, eponysterical!

I know at least one person who has studied many weapon forms from European and Asian origin with some of the best practitioners available. He might be able to throw together a weapon MMA, should he wish to. Generally, he practices Tai Chi and his own self defense art though.

There is a difference between self-defense and fighting, the most stylised example perhaps being sport forms versus practical forms. I am no expert, but I would suggest that a well executed self defense would have very little in common with a round of sport based martial arts. The main reason being the rules. Originally a martial art had to be effective to survive, now there are other mechanisms. You will see similar ideas and movments in most practical martial arts as the human body, with its inherent strengths and weaknesses, is perhaps the only constant. The codification of these 'truths' into kata, sequences or forms can be stylised out of existence, or honed to perfection depending on the will of the practitioner.

Ideally, one executes manoeuvres which are undetectable to the untrained eye and the attack is finished before it starts. This sounds, and looks, like magic. There are many people who make money from selling this ideal. Very few of them are genuine *. Watching Kuroda Sensei suggests that this is the ideal he is going for.

*Terry uses alot of pain compliance and joint locking which can be completely debilitating while it is on, but once released there is no long term physical damage. He likes to say that there is no point in knocking someone out if you can get the same effect by simply overloading the brain with pain(!?!).
posted by asok at 5:36 PM on October 24, 2008

Sorry, dirty lies.
posted by asok at 5:36 PM on October 24, 2008

I, for one, want to know where to buy some of those fabulous pants! Seriously, those are wonderful. I want some.
posted by dejah420 at 5:39 PM on October 24, 2008

The pants are called hakama. Hmmm... maybe it's time to put together that post traditional Japanese clothes.
posted by Mister Cheese at 6:06 PM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Beautiful.

I will note - the ritualized stuff is just that. But there's a difference in training. Doesn't mean the ritualized stuff is absolutely useless. Just that it can't make the cross to other ritualized stuff.
MMA is sweet, but it's not combat (Even vale tudo "no rules" had rules).One can debate practical effectiveness, but then one has to consider setting. Each setting has rules. You're not going to be lugging a sword into a nightclub. Nor is it likely you'll battle to the death in a bar without the cops or other folks trying to separate you.
Similarly - is the merit of an art like this only in it's practical function? It's beautiful. It's supposed to be.

I myself like kata only as a tool of visualization. So, more dynamic kata. Bit like chess in that way. But visualization is extraordinarily handy in training. It's good enough for Michael Jordan, it's good enough for me.
When it comes to more practical aspects, I use the shocknives and squibs and other training equipment to simulate a live environment and practice a bit more rough and tumble.

But just because something like this is as specialized as it is, doesn't mean you can't derive something useful from it. Doesn't have to be practical self-defense to be 'useful' either.

gotta go with i_am_joe's_spleen's PhD candidate friend on practicing aesthetic body movement. It's good exercise, improves coordination, etc.
And too many people deceive themselves they're going to have to face some bad-ass some time. They're not. Those guys pretty much only fight for money and don't want to get hurt by some guy who maybe tackles them into a table and they mess up their knee (even though they clobber the guy).
But seriously, Mark Kerr was bad, but you want to live that life? Get hooked on pain killers?

I enjoy MMA training, but the old days were bad. And why be a piece of meat for a bunch of people who want to see blood?
This is marvelous stuff.
Doesn't fill anyone's blood lust though. But to my mind, those folks should get off their ass and train and fight themselves if they want the rush of the contest.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:25 PM on October 24, 2008

Smedleyman,

I know we've had a little bit of discussion about this before, but, I disagree that kata is mainly for visualization. Actually, it's about building the body, and changing it to move differently than normal people move, stabilizing certain things. What Kuroda is doing is only possible because he has built his body in this way. This is the forging (tanren) process. If you look at the article, Kuroda claims that he got this from doing rolls-- he practiced until he could do many rolls in the space of one tatami.

In his family style, I understand that they learned all this through 2 person kata in the old days, but that Kuroda had to "enter into" his understanding through solo training. Many other traditions (Daito ryu and Yagyu Shingan ryu are two examples) had solo training sets or methods to create this same body. That's what allows non telegraphic striking, large amounts of disruption of the opponent in a small space, and all the 'trick' looking 'aiki' stuff. Without this type of body, then none of the 'aiki' looking stuff will work against resistance. In fact, kendo and iaido also teach these things at a high level, is my understanding. Take a look at some of the hachidan video on youtube (the old stuff, from right after WWII) and you can see the cohesiveness, the path between the back foot and the hand that allows a thrust to put someone down with minimal movement. This is also , I think, how the body check is supposed to work. For example, a friend of mine grew up doing kendo with his grandfather. The guy was very old, and small, yet he could still drop people with a body check, and hit very very hard against the helmet.

You're right of course that if people want to fight, then of course they have to get in some freestyle practice. You might be surprised to know that some people are using the skills I'm talking about to coach freestyle fighters and kickboxers. One of the people is the gentleman I linked up thread, Akuzawa-sensei. His curriculum is heavily based, in fact, in solo practice to build the body.

There are others as well, such as Dan Harden in Massachusetts. These skills are very, very real.
posted by wuwei at 11:46 PM on October 24, 2008

I also have to wonder how common one-on-one swordfighting ever really was, given it's lethality.

I found some data here.

Imagine that professional credentials were entirely unverifiable. People get work only by word of mouth. Slander could end somebody's career, and the best available way to deter such slander was a social convention that the victim gets to try to stab you if you do that.

Being a gentleman meant publicly advertising your willingness to stab anyone who said that you were not a gentleman. Every once in a while someone would get called on that. Duels were infrequent but not rare.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:58 PM on October 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

That Terry Wingrove clip was completely awesome, asok. Presumably, his opponents are genuinely attempting to tackle him in that demonstration?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:21 AM on October 25, 2008

Yes PeterMcDermott, they are trying to attack him. There are a few caveats to consider:
- safety is paramount
- attackers are generally stepping through with their attacks, which is something practiced in Traditional (i.e. modern Japanese) Karate and not something that occurs very often in reality
- attacks are delivered at demonstration speed
- the attackers are probably Terry's students. Often, when practitioners use their own students in this way it can lead to suspicions of collusion. In this case I suggest that the reason is simply that he wants to have ukes who are capable of dealing with the pain and know how to comply with the counters in order to minimise the danger.

I have seen people who have attained a black belt in some form of karate or other martial art who react in a, shall we say, unprofessional way to this type of technique. Swearing at Sensei and running away after getting up from the ground when a technique is executed isn't the best look for a demonstration.

Having said all that, the techniques are effective and very painful. Compliance is generally the only option as your brain has been short-circuited, just like unbalancing an opponent. Until you feel it, it is difficult to believe.

Whenever Terry does a training session with new students he will demonstrate techniques on the new students. However, the harsher stuff is reserved for his own students and those who have trained with him before. There are several reasons for this, not least because the techniques he demonstrates at this level can be very dangerous. Getting to know your students before giving them this type of tool is always a good idea.

It is possible to resist many of these techniques if you are a non-feeler (people who have reduced susceptability to direct nerve point attacks) and/or you know what is coming. In reality, someone who has trained to Terry's level will be able to execute many techniques within a number of seconds and follow through with the ones that are successful. Everybody reacts slightly differently to a stimulus, being able to deal with and capitalise on their reaction is where the art comes in, IMHO.

Regarding kata, my understanding is that kata are a shorthand method of practicing physical principles. To quote my Sensei:

In Shinseido the primary purposes of kata are a) to act as a catalogue of techniques from which we may draw upon for the purposes of self-defence, and b) to condition our bodies to correctly perform the techniques without conscious effort. There are also a number of other benefits which people variously ascribe to the practice of kata, such as balance, poise and mental focus.

We practice a few kata alot. For example, I am in my sixth year of training and I have learned four Pinan kata, Sanchin and two Shinseido kata. It could just be because I am a slow learner!
posted by asok at 7:10 AM on October 25, 2008

Kata seems to be about creating "muscle memory". Learning them allows you to instinctively throw a kick or a punch (or whatever) without fully engaging your brain. I really don't go for all the pointless Japanese names for what is a fairly simple process. If you keep doing one physical act over and over again you will eventually be able to do it quicker and more accurately than if you were to think about and then perform the action.

There is no difference in my mind between kata and any other repetitive physical activity. Even touch typing uses the same principles and to dress it up in faffy language conceals what is, to my mind, a rather simple process. I believe that training particular techniques does work up to a point. If someone throws a punch you might react with a particular kata that allows you to block the punch and follow up with a kick to the knee or what-have-you but I don't go for cheesy mysticism and the endless trumpeting of this and other natural human abilities dressed up in mumbo-jumbo.

I also think that there is no better practice than having to do something for real. Fight when you're tired or in the dark or with multiple opponents. Expect to get hurt. Real life combat is generally not between men in pajamas on nice soft mats in a well-lit gym. If your intention is actually to learn to fight or defend yourselves then you need to accept that.

Then again - I could be completely wrong. My keyboard-jutsu is weak.
posted by longbaugh at 10:32 AM on October 25, 2008

"Actually, it's about building the body, and changing it to move differently than normal people move, stabilizing certain things."

I know. Indeed, that exactly what beginners use it for. I'm saying what *I* use kata for. It's a helpful way to examine and refine, and perhaps set up, combinations. What works for you, your style, your body type, your fitness level and other intangibles.

Now I don't want to go far afield, but my beef has always been that a given form or school teaches "the Kata" and it's the same for everyone (sometimes up to 2nd or 3rd degree black).
Well, it's silly.
It's good focus, it's good for body movement, all those things. But at some point you've got to develop your own combinations. So you develop your own kata.
I understand some traditional arts do this. Which is at least some concession.

But I'm not talking practical vs. art form.
Look at it this way - someone developed certain kata. Why shouldn't you?
What works for a 5'3" Japanese guy isn't going to work for a bear like me. And how I train myself, I'm not going to train my daughter. I can use a lot of otherwise risky power moves because I've got the strength and mass to back it up. If my daughter ever throws an overhand right I'm going to toss her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

But by 'works' here I mean ok, sure practically, but also as a physical aesthetic.

A big moose like me is never, ever, going to look good doing a flying snap kick. Similarly - it's not going to work for me practically because it makes me work against my mass instead of taking advantage of it.
That's a more gross example, but that's the gist.

And indeed, Kuroda built his form into synthesis with his body type.

I take longbaugh's point here about repetative action. I'd add to it by saying someone invented any given set of kata. No reason you shouldn't invent your own.
In fact I'd say it's vital. Because you know the reactions that suit you and it helps you think more clearly about actual possibilities. The movement is tied to stimulus.
As I've said Jordan did that all the time - visualize the basket, making the shot. Visualize how he would move against an opponent. All that.

There's the old saw with Mas Oyama and the weightlifter and the thinker. I think it's hyperbolic but I agree with the fundimental point that the more 'real' you make the stimuli (internally) the more real and more fluid your reactions become.

I mean, if you're not visualizing a stimuli in contrast to the technique (given you've memorized the movements) - intercepting the punch that's coming in, say - then what are you doing? Just throwing an arm up there?

The point being once you've got the body built, once you've got the motions down by rote - you need to begin to 'see' the punch, kick, or whatever - coming in that you're reacting to.
Otherwise your technique will lack focus.
This is true whether you plan to use it in the street, as art in the dojo or to save your life.

I do this in shooting as well. I see the hole my bullet makes before I shoot. It's a good way to marry yourself to your weapon. Or your fist or any extension of your body.

I don't know the science of it. I know it's called Chi or Ki. But it's that melding process that your nerves adjust to the picture in your brain.

Now if your focused on kata by rote and for a given expression of a form, obviously you want a rigid pattern and keep refining that over and over. But visualization still helps - here comes this guys foot, I block, shift, strike....now he's over here and he's throwing a punch, I shift, counter, strike...he's down, now it's another guy - etc.

But once you've mastered the moves you're going to want to develop combinations - rotes - kata - whatever - of your own. What feels right to you, what looks good, etc.
All fighters do this, boxers, wrestlers, etc. etc.

Because, although you might know the moves, you're not going to reflexively pull 'w' move from kata 6, 'x' move from kata 2 and 'y' and 'z' move from kata 4 in immediate sequence.
Not unless you train that way.

So, sparring and real life situations feed your kata and vice versa. You discover combinations that work, and ones that work for you. Then you refine them.

The best fighters - if you watch closely - generally are effective using a fairly small set of combinations and spend the rest of their time trying to maneuver their opponent into a situation where they can explode with them. They may know any number of good counters, combos, etc. But they're best with a fairly small set of tools.
That's because they've found what works well for them and honed that.

Learning kata as rote motion in and of themselves is more akin to dancing. Nothing wrong with that at all. As I've said, it's beautiful. But dancers also use visualization. Not only in their surroundings, but they visualize how they themselves look. How they want to look. And they refine their motions until their moves become that mental picture.

And indeed, a skilled dancer could knock the crap out of most untrained shmos. Bruce Lee was the cha cha champ of hong kong. One of my uncles (who was inducted into the hall of fame a bit back) was an outstanding dancer. So again - practical stuff, I'm not making a one upmanship argument here.

I'd just be very surprised if nothing was going on inside their heads when they train.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:00 PM on October 25, 2008

My guess is that, like in the mixed-martial-arts events, hybrid and functional forms will consistently beat the scripted and pretty forms.

That might be valid, except MMAs are generally rigged to make particular styles look good.

This is because most martial arts train in a theoretical vacuum that has nothing to do with actual fighting

Many martial arts may be dated (designed to fight threats that are no longer particularly valid), but most martial arts have at their core a bunch of techniques that emerged from "surviving real fights." That's certainly true of all the Japanese traditional martial arts and their modern descendants like Judo, as a simple example.

More importantly "actual fighting" is a meaningless term. Soldiers fight. Guys in pubs fight. Gangsters fight. Police fight. Football hooligans fight. All of these are under very different circumstances with different things you'd need to train for; you can go do BJJ, hopped up on its performance in UFC (which was long setup in a way that was very friendly to BJJ, I might add), and then get cleaned out in a bar brawl when you stupidly go to ground.

(And the best self defence isn't any of that, it's to be where trouble isn't.)
posted by rodgerd at 3:08 AM on October 26, 2008

...and then get cleaned out in a bar brawl when you stupidly go to ground.
Right. BJJ is considerably less useful if the other guy has a buddy.

My own preference in martial arts is finding techniques that will help me run away.

Get pushed down? Breakfall and run!
A big guy is charging straight at you? Pivot, let him go by, and run!
Someone at the bar thinks you looked at him funny? Bow respectfully, back away slowly, and run!

You can't win a street fight -- nobody can. Even if you KO the other guy, you'll still have some explaining to do to the police. Even if you're legally in the clear, do you want to spend time proving that?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:39 AM on October 26, 2008

Smedleyman: Look at it this way - someone developed certain kata. Why shouldn't you?
Indeed, it is a good idea to practice the moves and techniques that work for you.

But visualization still helps - here comes this guys foot, I block, shift, strike....now he's over here and he's throwing a punch, I shift, counter, strike...he's down, now it's another guy - etc.

This is where my understanding of karate kata differs, as I understand it there are very few combinations of moves in kata that can be shown to be a practical sequence. This idea seems to have been developed in Japan in Traditional (modern Japanese) Karate where the intent and meaning behind movements was re-invented to fit the newly minted names of the moves. This karate was derived from Anko Itosu's Pinan kata which themselves were a gentrified and infantilised version of karate developed for teaching to school children. I believe that the Pinan kata still contain a huge amount of information that does not involve any of the obvious moves such as punches or blocks, although the physical similarity between, say, applying an arm bar and punch with hikate is obvoious.

There are a few sequences of moves in kata that can be strung together to create practical techniques, but in general the kata is a short hand for physical principles that have many applications. For instance, the opening moves in Chen Man Ching form in Tai Chi have been interperated to have over 37 applications. I am sure this is not news to you, but I think the distinction between practicing combinations of moves and the denser information imparted by kata is important.
posted by asok at 5:36 AM on October 26, 2008

Many martial arts may be dated (designed to fight threats that are no longer particularly valid), but most martial arts have at their core a bunch of techniques that emerged from "surviving real fights." That's certainly true of all the Japanese traditional martial arts and their modern descendants like Judo, as a simple example.

Well, the thing about kata is that kata is useful but it can't be the only thing you do. This is probably much more obvious for Judo techniques than for punching and kicking techniques (because throwing resisting people is _hard_), but knowing how to execute a throw on a non-resisting opponent is only the beginning of being able to use it.

For example, I specialize in o-soto-gari (the major outside reap). This means that I know a bunch of ways to set it up, and that I've tried to use it against people often enough that I instinctively 'know' where I have to be in relation to my opponent, and/or what he has to be doing, or how I can get him to do what I want him to so I can throw him. (And what to do I mess up, or if he blocks one way or the other way ...)

Now O-soto-gari comes from a Jujitsu ryu, yes, so it pre-dates Judo. Jigoro Kano's genius was creating an environment where I could safely practice o-soto-gari on a resisting opponent. Not everybody does that -- I have gone to karate schools and seen o-soto-gari taught incorrectly (a lot of places let people plant the reaping leg, don't off-balance properly, &c.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that knowing exactly when to preform a technique is just as important as how to preform a technique, and that's the part that kata doesn't address. And so, just because something is 'battlefield tested' doesn't matter _that_ much ...
posted by Comrade_robot at 6:17 AM on October 26, 2008

"This is where my understanding of karate kata differs, as I understand it there are very few combinations of moves in kata that can be shown to be a practical sequence...I am sure this is not news to you, but I think the distinction between practicing combinations of moves and the denser information imparted by kata is important."

Agreed. But that's the base to work off of for practical application (if any - even if it's just for technical reasons). It's the difference between formal exercise - the stylistically controlled and programmed movement, and practical application. It is indeed hard to show individual kata movements since they flow into each other in practice. (But I don't design scenarios such that they're divorced from a flow of events either)

In both situations, visualization helps. As does meditation. Any mental concentration training, really. Indeed, mentally watching yourself do kata works wonders.

So again, I don't have a dog in the practical vs art argument here. It's too far afield, and it's been had a number of times.
I'm just noting the usefulness of visualization in general as an easily applied broadly based training method. Whatever the application. Sports, dance, kata or practical fight training or combat scenarios. Marry the internal vision to how your body reacts externally and you're a lot more in control of yourself. 90% of the conflict right there.
posted by Smedleyman at 7:16 PM on October 26, 2008